Center of the Universe
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Byakuya can see the future through the past.


**Title:** Center of the Universe  
**Author:** Celeste  
**Universe:** Bleach   
**Feedback:** yes, please!  
**Theme:** N/A  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairing:** IchigoxRukiaxRenji triangle, mentions ByakuyaxHisana  
**Spoilers:** For Ch 179  
**Word Count: **1,289  
**Time:** 27 minutes, minor, skimming edits.  
**Summary:** Byakuya can see the future through the past.  
**Dedication:** Everyone for their continuing support at I didn't think I'd ever make 10 people's favorite lists, let alone, 100! Thanks everyone!  
**A/N:** So… yeah. Some things, very, very, rare things that make me LOVE a lot can actually induce me to write het fic. It happens once in a blue moon, but it looks like it happened tonight, because really, 179 of Bleach totally made me all mushy inside and I've been meaning to do something along these lines anyway because really, I 3 Byakuya. So, this is my attempt at something a little different, and I hope it's not totally…strange, considering I'm mostly a yaoi writer and I know, I know, I shouldn't overstep my bounds! Sorry! Also, apologies for rampant adjective abuse.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

Rukia, he muses, had a way of making herself the center of everyone's universe.

But then again, Hisana had been exactly the same in her own unintentional way, and hadn't that been one of the things he'd loved most about her, after all?

Renji and Kurosaki are the same, he observes, despite the differences in time and place and experience between them all. When it comes to these women, the three of them are exactly the same.

Byakuya hides his small smile behind his tea cup and thinks that these two remarkable women have a way of effortlessly making themselves into someone's whole wide world.

His little sister, much like her predecessor, is oblivious to her own import, and Byakuya watches from afar as Abarai Renji and Kurosaki Ichigo slowly fall deeper and deeper into the abyss, willingly running blind the entire way.

He almost wants to warn them, almost wants to tell them both that there is nothing that can hold this beautiful, fierce little creature down, that can tie her to them against her own will.

He wants to tell her that she is a cruel, wonderful being who will rip the hearts of men to pieces and make them desire more, more, more, until they don't even want to remember what it was like to live as a whole person anymore.

He wants to tell those boys chasing blindly after her, trying to shove each other backwards so that one can be closer than the other, that their own efforts will be futile because really, his little sister is just like the woman he loved, and in the end, will choose of her own resolve and nothing, absolutely nothing they do will move her from that decision.

Byakuya knows after all. He tried for many years. Words and presents and gestures and everything in-between and all he'd ever really had of Hisana had been that tiny, beautiful body and the gratitude she would gift him with for granting her safe harbor in his home.

It had always been gratitude after all, that had shone back at him in those luminous eyes whenever he'd held her. It had been gratitude and perhaps regret, an apology for being unable to love him in return.

He wants to warn those two hot-headed boys he sees chasing haphazardly after his pretty little sister, wants to shout at them that in the end, she will make her own choice and that is all that she will do. Nothing they can do will move her, and when it all settles, one or both of them will be inconsolably brokenhearted.

He wants to tell them to get out of it while they still can, before they fall any deeper into the hole they are so fervently trying to beat each other into reaching. It is a dangerous path, one he has navigated himself as well, and as their elder, he feels that perhaps he should warn them off, tell them that in the end, that they are very quickly, very willingly throwing away their own wills to the whims of his oblivious, beautiful little sister, who will, ultimately, make her own choice and never, never, ever be swayed from that course once she decides upon it.

He's been there before after all, down that tumultuous path. He has seen all there is to see on that road, has tripped over every stone and fallen over every cliff there. He's heard the quiet, distant rings of "Byakuya-sama…" against his ear, has seen eyes a thousand miles away when all he wanted in his whole life was for them to be _right there _where he was, looking back at him instead of at some far off place.

He, more than anyone, knows the painful difference between reverence and love.

And while he is certain, and as his secret pride as an older brother hopes, that Rukia will never fall so far as to revere either of those two noisy idiots, he knows that at least, at _least_ one of them, if not both, will know exactly what he feels, will come to be acquainted with how these amazing, heartless women operate. At least one of those hot-blooded youths will never be able to truly touch his tiny, powerful little sister. Part of him suspects that it will be both of them.

He almost wants to shout warning at them now, before they get in any deeper. He wants to tell them to run far away and protect what is left of their hearts and minds because if they linger for too much longer, they will be imprisoned forever.

He almost wants to do all those things, tell those youthful, posturing boys about the difficult road that lies ahead and steer them away to safety out of sympathy and mutual understanding.

Almost.

Except that when he looks back, when he looks back and remembers those rare, precious moments with Hisana where his endless, desperate attempts to make her love him resulted unintentionally, in the sound of her laughter or the momentary lightening of her eyes, he can't quite bring himself to warn them away like he wants, because even though he never truly experienced her love, and even though he will most likely continue to live a lifetime of sorrow after her passing, when he thinks back on those rare, precious moments, his heart is filled with a sort of warm joy that makes every moment, every sorrow, every frustration, worth every minute of it.

That's the power in the end, of these two remarkable women, he muses.

To simply see the sun smile down on you once is enough, worth enduring a hundred thousand years' worth of pain many times over.

And it will happen, he is certain, to one or both of those hot-headed, warm-blooded, loud-mouthed young boys, the two that are posturing and sneering at each other and trying very, very desperately to beat the other into reaching a warm, wonderful, horrible abyss that he will never be able to return from, no matter how hard he tries.

It seems, it seems to Kuchiki Byakuya, that very soon, he will have company here in this remarkable place he has been exiled to for so long. A fellow casualty.

It is rather inevitable.

His little sister is remarkable after all. He knows that like her sister, she has become the center of those foolish young men's universes. They have unwittingly, given her the power to maintain, to elevate, to destroy.

It is all a consequence of loving these remarkable, untamable, cruelly wonderful women.

Serenely, Byakuya hides his small smile behind his tea cup and hopes that both of those starry-eyed young men will bring many smiles to his little sister's face, many chimes of laughter and many a sparkle to her cunning eye. Because in the end, she will choose and that will be the end of that.

But those smiles, that laughter… no matter what happens, who she chooses, who she doesn't…

…in the end, both of those boys, those head-over-heels-in-love boys, will get to keep the memory of that. The memory of Rukia's joy.

Byakuya knows that it those things that make it ultimately, worth it all. Worth the heartache, the sacrifice, the pain and uncertainty.

It is truly the power of heaven, he thinks. That this girl will be able to cure all the troubles in a young man's soul with a fleeting, unexpected expression of happiness.

He hears the sound of his sister's laughter in the distance and sips his tea, watching as the two young men gravitate chaotically around her, the center of their universe.

The sun shines down on his face and sadly, joyfully, he remembers Hisana's smile.

**END **


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